"Brewed in late spring and aged in our refrigerator until mid Fall, this barley wine style ale brings a whopping 10.3% ABV to the task. Deep brown and sweet with spices, Old Man Winter Warmer does what its name promises for your nose and your belly. O.G. 1.101."

Diesel, brown sugar and maple syrup with hops that are old and dusty like dry leaves. Goes down smooth like 5W-30, and is perfectly carbonated... just enough. Boozy and delicious, an actual winter warmer.

2014; I really like this. Dark, good aroma. It actually has that slight warm alcohol burn. Really nice. Burnt sugar and a bit bitter. Will miss it. Hard to hold on to this one. Will age a couple bottles just for fun.

Pours a dark amber-brown with a thin white head that quickly fades to a lacing. Sweet fruit and spice on the nose. Taste is classic English barleywine--deep malt with some caramel and toffee notes, fig and dark fruity flavors mid-palate, with a pleasant hop bitterness on the finish. Silky smooth mouthfeel--perhaps a little on the thin side for the style, but quite pleasant nonetheless.

Appearance: Pours a deep dark brownish amber red with a moderate amount of bubbles. Very slight off white head that quickly fades. Leaves a decent amount of lacing.

Smell: A deep and toasty malt forward aroma with big hints of caramel, smoke, and dark fruit. Toasted barley malts with upfront hints of sweet caramel, toffee, biscuit, grains, and yeast along with some hints of smoke, wood, chocolate, peat, and nuts. Sweet hints of molasses and brown sugar. Good presence of dark fruit with hints of raisin, fig, plum, and dates. Hops are subtle. Smells more like a Scotch ale than Barleywine. Pretty solid.

Taste: Like the aroma, a toasty and roasty Scotch ale like malty taste with good notes of caramel, smoke, and dark fruit. Bready taste of toasted barley malts with notes of biscuit, caramel, toffee, grains, yeast, chocolate, and nuts. Also some good notes of smoked malt, peat, and wood. Sweet taste of brown sugar and molasses. Dark fruit undertones including notes of raisin, plum, fig, and dates. A very solid toasty malt winter taste.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with a moderate amount of carbonation. Creamy, slick, and slightly syrupy. Finishes smooth with a well hidden alcohol presence.

Overall: A really solid Winter brew. More smokey and Scotch like than any Barleywine I've tried. Whatever it is it is a really nice malty Winter beer.

Smell is woody and loaded with dark fruit. Plums, brown sugar, a touch of smoke. Nice.

Taste is similar to the smell, but it drifts off into a messy realm where an odd bitterness (alcohol?) dominates, leaving those pleasant fruity and smoked wood flavors in the dust. Not bad, not great. I want more sweetness, more depth, more oomph.

Feel is fine. Medium-heavy body, slightly sticky, with a lasting finish. Carbonation is right on the low edge of what I'd consider acceptable.

Every piece of this beer is fine or better, but as whole, it's meh. Overly bitter in the flavor, and given the ABV, I want a lot more flavor and complexity than I'm getting. Woody, smoky, and the smell's promise of fruit wasn't backed up by the taste.

12 fl oz brown glass bottle with standard pressure cap served into a shitty highball glass in a hotel room in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Reviewed live. Expectations are above average merely from the style. Acquired as part of a mixed sixer at the Four Firkins.

Served straight from the refrigerator. Side-poured with standard vigor as no carbonation issues are anticipated.

A: Pours a half finger beige-khaki colour head. Nice cream and thickness. Underwhelming retention, but excusable given the ABV. Colour is a very dark dull nontransparent brown. No yeast particles are visible. No bubble show.

T: Sticky plum and toffee, with sugary sweet biscuit malts throughout. Not as hoppy as I'd expect from an English barleywine; any hopping is minimal at best and blandly floral. Raisiney. Dark fruits. The stickiness is a bit of a turn-off. Sort of messy, but not as boozy as you might expect. Not real balanced or complex. I'm not particularly impressed. No yeast or alcohol comes through - quite an achievement at this high an ABV. Overly sweet.

Mf: Smooth, wet, and above all sticky. Not at all creamy. Good thickness, but too heavy on the palate for the lack of diverse flavour. Certainly full bodied. Carbonation is off; I can't tell in which direction. Somewhat chewy. Too sugary.

Dr: Drinkable for the high ABV. I wouldn't have it again, but it's not bad. Well priced. A decent barleywine, but not one worth seeking out.